> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # VortexIQ Findings Open, Smartsheet (API) > Tickets we created from audit findings that haven't been resolved yet. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it. **Metrics type:** [Key Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Project Management](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) > Tickets we created from audit findings that haven't been resolved yet. ## At a glance > Live count of rows Vortex IQ created in your Smartsheet *Findings* sheet that aren't marked closed yet. Smartsheet is the spreadsheet-power-user's project tool, findings are rows in a dedicated sheet, with status as a `Dropdown List` column. PMO offices love this one because you can build resource-allocation Gantt views over the same data. | | | | ------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **What it counts** | Rows in the merchant-mapped Findings sheet whose `Status` column value is not in the closed set. Each row counts as one. Sub-rows (Smartsheet's hierarchy) count separately if they carry their own `Status` value. | | **Sheet scope** | One Smartsheet sheet per connected workspace, named at setup (Settings → Connectors → Smartsheet → Findings sheet). Vortex IQ does NOT crawl other sheets, your PMO templates, resource-management sheets, and Gantt views are invisible to this count. | | **PMO-friendly column scheme** | Reads four Smartsheet columns by name: `Status` (Dropdown List), `Priority` (Dropdown List), `Assigned To` (Contact List), `Created (Auto)` (Created Date system column). Renaming any breaks the read. The connector verifies columns at setup and refuses to enable until the sheet has them. | | **Status filter** | Open = `Status` ∈ \{`Open`, `In Progress`, `Blocked`, `Investigating`}. Closed = \{`Done`, `Won't Fix`, `Duplicate`, `Cancelled`}. The dropdown values are seeded by Vortex IQ at sheet creation; PMO teams sometimes add custom values like "On Hold", which need mapping in connector settings. | | **Why a sheet** | Smartsheet shines when the same data needs multiple views: a flat row list for findings management, a Card view for daily standups, a Gantt for capacity planning, a Report for cross-sheet rollups. The findings sit in one sheet but PMOs build all three views from it without duplicating the data. | | **Resolution counts** | A row drops out of this count when `Status` becomes any closed value. The row stays in the sheet (not deleted), so historical reporting is intact. | | **Sync mechanism** | Smartsheet webhooks (`*.row.*` events) plus 5-minute reconciliation via `GET /sheets/{id}` (Smartsheet REST API). | | **Time window** | `RT` (real-time). | | **Alert trigger** | `>20 open`. | | **Roles** | owner, operations | ## Calculation Calculated automatically from your Smartsheet (API) data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading. ## Worked example A US wholesale-and-DTC home goods brand on BigCommerce. Their PMO runs everything in Smartsheet: marketing campaigns, supplier deliveries, vendor onboarding, audit-finding triage. Findings live in *Vortex IQ Findings* sheet with 41 rows. Snapshot taken on 18 Apr 26. | `Status` value | Rows | Counts as open? | | -------------- | ---- | --------------- | | Open | 11 | yes | | Investigating | 4 | yes | | In Progress | 8 | yes | | Blocked | 2 | yes | | Done | 12 | no | | Won't Fix | 3 | no | | Cancelled | 1 | no | ```text theme={null} Open count = 11 + 4 + 8 + 2 = 25 ``` The card shows **25** and the alert fires (threshold `>20`). The dashboard banner reads *"25 open findings in the PMO sheet, queue grew by 4 this week"*. **The PMO benefit:** the same 25 rows appear in the team's Card view (grouped by `Assigned To`, used in the daily standup), in the Report rollup the PMO Director uses across multiple workstreams, and in the Gantt view that the resource-planning analyst uses to forecast capacity. Vortex IQ doesn't write to those views, they're all *projections* of the underlying findings sheet. So the count here, 25, drives every PMO conversation about findings without anyone needing to learn a new tool. **Why "Cancelled" rows don't count:** during connector setup the PMO admin mapped the Smartsheet *Cancelled* dropdown value into the closed set, signalling "we explicitly decided not to pursue this". This is the recommended pattern. Note: cancelling is different from `Won't Fix`, the PMO admin uses Cancelled when the underlying audit finding turned out to be invalid (e.g. measuring a feature that's been removed) and `Won't Fix` when the finding is valid but the team has prioritised against it. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together Open Findings is the queue depth. Read it next to: | Card | Why it matters next to Open Findings | What the combination tells you | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [Abandoned Findings (>14d no movement)](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/smartsheet-api/abandoned-findings) | Open includes everything unclosed; abandoned isolates rotting rows. | Stale ratio above 30% means triage time, not capacity time. | | [Finding Resolution Rate (90d)](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/smartsheet-api/finding-resolution-rate) | Throughput. | Open growing + Resolution Rate falling = capacity issue. Open growing + rate stable = inflow surge. | | [Avg Time-to-Fix](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/smartsheet-api/avg-time-to-fix) | Per-row speed. | High Open + low Time-to-Fix = healthy; high Open + high Time-to-Fix = systemic slowdown. | | [Tickets by Assignee](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/smartsheet-api/tickets-by-assignee) | Load distribution across `Assigned To`. | Concentration on one person is a routing problem, the PMO should rebalance. | | [Backlog by Priority](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/smartsheet-api/backlog-by-priority) | What's actually open by importance. | If 80% of Open is `Low`, close the low ones with `Won't Fix` rather than chase capacity. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to reproduce this in Smartsheet itself:** The fastest method is a saved Filter on the Findings sheet: > **Open the Vortex IQ Findings sheet → Filter (top toolbar) → Create New Filter.** > Name it *Open*. Add condition: `Status` is **not one of** `Done, Won't Fix, Duplicate, Cancelled`. > Save and apply. The bottom-of-sheet row count is your open total. PMO admins typically save this filter and pin it as the default sheet view, so the team always sees only open findings on first open. For multi-sheet PMOs, the same number can be aggregated via a Smartsheet Report (cross-sheet rollup): ```text theme={null} Source sheets: [Vortex IQ Findings] Filter: Status not in (Done, Won't Fix, Duplicate, Cancelled) Group: Status, Assigned To ``` The Report total at the top should match this card. **Why our number may legitimately differ from your filtered sheet:** | Reason | Direction | Why | | -------------------------- | -------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Sync lag** | Ours lower | We refresh on row-event webhook + 5-minute reconciliation. A status change in the last few minutes may not yet be in our count. | | **Custom dropdown values** | Ours possibly higher | If the PMO added a custom value like "On Hold" or "Awaiting Sign-off" to the `Status` dropdown without mapping it during connector setup, we count it as open by default (anything not explicitly closed). Re-map in *Settings → Connectors → Smartsheet → Status mapping*. | | **Sheet permissions** | Ours higher | A teammate who is a *Viewer* on the sheet sees only rows they have access to (Smartsheet's row-level sharing). The connector token (Owner) sees everything. The connector view is the correct organisational total. | | **Archived sheets** | Either | If the PMO archives the Findings sheet for a quarterly close and creates a new one, the connector keeps pointing at the archived sheet (returning historical numbers) until you re-map. | | **Multi-currency / FX** | n/a | Smartsheet has no currency arithmetic in this card; not a source of drift. | **Cross-connector reconciliation:** If this merchant *also* connected Asana, Jira, ClickUp, or another PM tool, the *Findings* counts there are not the same population. Vortex IQ writes to one mapped destination per workspace. If you switched destination from Smartsheet to Jira in the last 90 days, the Smartsheet sheet will show a frozen historical count and Jira will reflect ongoing inflow. ## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **Why is my Open count rising?** Three usual reasons, in order of likelihood: (1) inflow exceeds outflow, the team isn't moving rows to closed statuses, check *Resolution Rate*; (2) someone added a custom dropdown value to `Status` that isn't mapped, e.g. "Pending Vendor", and we count it as open by default, re-map; (3) the PMO created a new copy of the sheet for the next quarter and findings are now writing there but the connector still points at the old one. **Can the card aggregate across multiple Smartsheet sheets?** Not today. One mapped sheet per workspace. The PMO pattern of "one sheet per workstream" can produce 4-5 separate finding sheets, the recommended setup is to use a single *master* findings sheet with a `Workstream` column for filtering. Cross-sheet rollups via Smartsheet Reports work natively for the merchant's PMO, but Vortex IQ's KPI cards count from the mapped sheet only. **Our PMO uses Smartsheet's "Sheet Summary" with calculated fields. Does Vortex IQ read those?** No, only column data on rows. Sheet Summary fields are out of scope. If you need a calculated metric on findings, expose it as a new column (e.g. `Days Since Created`) and Vortex IQ will read it. **My team uses Smartsheet's hierarchical rows (parent-child). How are they counted?** Each row counts independently if it carries a `Status` value. A parent row marked `Open` with three child rows marked `Done` counts as **1 open + 3 closed** (4 total). The connector treats hierarchy as visual organisation, not data semantics. **Why "20 open" as the alert threshold? Our PMO manages 100+ items routinely.** Default calibrated for small ecommerce teams. PMO-style merchants who run multi-workstream operations should raise it in *Settings → Connectors → Smartsheet → Alerts → Open findings threshold*. Rule of thumb: 2× weekly resolution rate. **Does the count include rows in *deleted* sheets?** No. Smartsheet keeps deleted sheets in a 30-day Recycle Bin; we exclude them immediately. If you accidentally deleted the Findings sheet and recreated it from a template, this card resets to 0 until findings start writing again. **Can I see *which* findings are open, not just the count?** Yes, click the card to drill into the row list. Or open the saved *Open* filter in Smartsheet directly (recommended for PMO triage workflows). **Smartsheet's API has rate limits, does that affect this card?** The connector's reconciliation respects Smartsheet's 300 requests/minute per token limit. For sheets with thousands of rows, the reconciliation uses the cursor-paginated `GET /sheets/{id}` endpoint, which counts as 1 request per page (500 rows per page). Even a 5,000-row sheet refreshes in 10 requests, well within the limit. **Why is this a Key Metrics card?** Because it's the single most-asked operational question for PMO-led merchants: *"how many audit findings are sitting in our PMO sheet?"*. One number, scannable in 1 second, gates everything else. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *VortexIQ Findings Open* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Smartsheet (API) and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. [Start for free](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.